Great cards from Rob (Voice of the Collector)

I don’t usually write posts about card trades that I’ve made; as a matter of fact, I haven’t written anything about most of the trades that I’ve made since I started this blog. I know that a lot of other bloggers write posts about every trade that they make, and I hope nobody has taken any offense to my lack of trade posts. I have made many great trades with several readers and other bloggers. I’ve gotten some awesome Rays cards, Prince Fielder cards, Don Mattingly cards, and many cards to help me complete sets that I’m building. Just today, I was able to complete my set of Upper Deck Series 1 as a result of a trade with a reader named Peter in High Point, NC. And I should be getting the last card that I need to complete my 2007 Masterpieces set from another reader in the next few days.

But anyway, I think that in general, my readers aren’t all that interested in the details of every card trade that I make. However, I do want to post about one particular trade that I recently made with Rob (a.k.a. “Guido”) from Voice of the Collector. There are two reasons. First, I really want to give a shout out to Rob for starting what I believe is one of the best card blogs out there. Rob has risen to the task of pointing out many of the problems in today’s hobby, especially problems related to a certain troubled publication that shares its name with the Boston Red Sox ace. But Rob doesn’t just focus on the negative; he has written many interesting and informative posts about current card sets and even some good fictional writing.

Secondly, not only did Rob send me some very cool cards, but he also included a very cool surprise that I wasn’t expecting. Here are the cards that he told me he was sending:

My favorite of these is the Aki relic card from SP Legendary Cuts, which I must say is one of the nicer looking sets of the year:

The surprise turned out to be a pack of 2008 Topps Big Stix. These are 5×7 inch “cards” that are made up of multiple removable stickers. I hadn’t seen any of these in person before, so I was excited to open the pack. I noticed that the pack was partially opened, and I thought that maybe it had been invaded by a pack searcher. The first thing I found when I opened the pack was a checklist. I saw Evan Longoria’s name on it and thought about how great it would be to have a Longoria Big Stix card. To my amazement, I found not only Longoria, but five different Rays:

Evan Longoria

Carlos Pena

Jonny Gomes

B.J. Upton

Carl Crawford

So I’m pretty sure that Rob had inserted all of these into the pack himself, which explains why it was partially opened. Here’s the Longoria:

These Big Stix are a great addition to my Rays collection!

I sent 2008 Goudey relic cards of Aramis Ramirez and Mark Buehrle, a 2008 Upper Deck Kosuke Fukudome rookie, and complete team sets of both the Cubs and White Sox from 2008 Goudey to Rob. And I’ll be sending a little something extra his way to thank him for his generosity. Thanks Rob!